Race the Darkness (25 page)

Father dropped her in the box like an armful of dirty laundry.

Her arm. Her broken arm. The pain was going to be excruciating when she woke.

Father slammed the iron lid. The clang of it reverberating over the river. He locked each side with a black key, then walked back to King, whose gaze never left the box containing his daughter.

“Rex, my eldest son”—Father stroked King's chin and then forced his face up—“evil's power is boundless.” His voice was soft and kind. “You know it could be masquerading as dormant to fool us.”

“Her touch no longer burns me. It no longer burns you.” He tried to keep the defiance from his tone, but he wasn't successful. He braced, waiting for another slap.

“We cannot take the chance that this is a ruse.”

“That's what you said last time.” King whispered the words, not daring to say them full volume. When Father didn't strike him, he continued. “Father…” Liquid sorrow flowed into King's eyes. “She's my daughter. Your granddaughter. Our blood flows in her veins. She could learn to be strong in our faith. Can we give her a chance?”

“No.” The word was flat and full, offering no room for argument. “I cannot allow this. I have been lenient with you regarding her because I understood your struggles, but we will not squander this Lord-given opportunity.”

King could no longer bear the sight of his father, his leader, this man who was respected and revered in their community. He clamped his eyes shut.

“Have faith. Let the Lord in. He will ease this burden just as he has eased the burden of what went before.”

The Lord had never eased that burden. The only way King could live with what had happened to Shayla was to not think about it. To carve that memory out of his brain and bury it so deep inside himself that he couldn't find it.

“If it eases you, stay with her. Offer her counsel, educate her in the ways of our Lord so that her death will be a release instead of a condemnation.” Father sighed. “That is the most mercy I can offer either of you.”

King nodded, but he didn't open his eyes.

Father let go of him and settled his hand upon King's head. “Find peace, my son.”

“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”

The words penetrated Isleen's sleep, acting as a tether pulling her into awful awareness. It was dark, so dark. Where was she? She didn't know. With her good hand, she searched for the source of the voice in the dark. Her fingers trailed over the smooth floor, then up the wall next to her, then over the ceiling above her. Her mind mapped the dimensions of the space.

She was in a box. No, it wasn't a mere box.

It was a coffin.

She should be freaking out. She should be pounding on the sides, trying to find a way out. She wasn't doing any of that. All the fight had left her.

Memories and pain hit—searing, burning, throbbing. The ferocity sucking the air out of her. She remembered this kind of pain. Only this time it was worse, so much worse. This time she didn't have her dreams of Xander to sustain her.

He was dead. And if by some vicious fate he wasn't, he would be a vegetable. No one survived that kind of bullet wound to the head without the severest of consequences.

In those woods, she had tried, had poured every ounce of will into healing him, had waited to feel something, but nothing happened. Fearless and Bear—she and Xander—had been nothing more than an alluring story.

“Xander…” Her voice snapped and broke over his name. A beautiful name, a strong name, the only name that ever mattered to her.

Heavy, ugly sounds of sorrow spewed out of her.

Everything hurt.

Breathing hurt.

Living hurt.

She'd thought she'd known pain in the trailer. She'd thought she'd known pain when Gran died. She hadn't known pain at all. Hadn't known that pain was a dull ax blade hacking, cleaving, severing heart from soul. Her heart from Xander's soul.

“I'm sorry.” The voice—the voice of Xander's killer—penetrated her grief, but her mind had no room to question him, no room for anger. Every thought, every feeling boiled down to one terrible truth. Xander was probably dead. She cried until her throat was scraped raw, her face hurt, and her stomach muscles ached from the force of her sobs. And then her soul cried until exhaustion settled its blanket of oblivion over her.

* * *

Consciousness slammed into her, jerking her out of sleep's numbing embrace and thrusting her back into reality. Pain hammered at her arm and a dull, diffuse headache saturated her brain, but something was different with her. She didn't hurt. Oh, her body still ached, but her heart no longer wept and her soul no longer bled. Everything that mattered—feelings, hopes, dreams, Gran, and Xander—had separated from her.

She had fractured. She'd broken like a wishbone snapped in two, and all that remained of her was a body that hadn't died yet and a mind incapable of emotion. Or could this lack of feeling be an indicator that she had died?

Darkness surrounded her, blinded her. The exact opposite of that endless white from her dreams. She blinked hard to clear her eyes. Nothing. No shapes. No shadows. No shades of color. Maybe this black void really was death.

“And the Lord commanded”—the words sounded odd and diluted—“all his Faithful to rid the land of demons and devils. And the kingdom of…”

Nope. Not dead.

She recognized the voice. The man who killed Gran and Xander. Just thinking about Xander should be devastating, but her emotions were blessedly anesthetized.

The man continued to spout Godly phrases and holier-than-thou platitudes, but she wasn't listening.

“Where are you?” she asked more out of curiosity than any real caring, cutting him off in the middle of some prayer.

“You're awake. Bless the Lord. I'm here. Outside. There's so much I need to tell you before the end.”

She supposed he meant to kill her, and yet she didn't feel any horror at the thought of dying. Honestly, she couldn't wait. She'd simply reached her limit. She had no more tolerance for this life that had given her nothing but terror, pain, and heartache, with only the briefest glimmers of happiness.

“Mister, why don't you just kill me and get it over with?” Her tone was all attitudinal teenager trying to get her way.

“I do not like you referring to me as
mister
. I'd prefer you to call me Father.”

“Oh yeah. I forgot. You're a priest.” Psychotic laughter bubbled up from somewhere inside her. “What are you preaching to people? Thou
shalt
kill?”

“I am an ordained man of God, but wish for you to refer to me as Father because Shayla was my wife and I am your father.” He spoke with the same authoritative tone Alex had used on Xander.

White sparklers of color exploded in her head. She had to have heard him wrong. But her ears still rang with those words.
Shayla was my wife and I am your father.

Chuffing, sniffling noises came from outside. “Shayla… She… She…” He hiccupped a sob. “She died. The same way you're going to.”

“You killed her? I'm not surprised.” The person speaking these words, using the bored tone of voice, wasn't her. It was her broken self.

More evidence of the fracture her psyche had suffered: The old her would've been clamoring for more information about her mother. Any detail. Anything about the woman Isleen had never met and knew nothing about. But this version of her had moved beyond pain to a state of apathy. Her mother was just another loss on the necklace of bones hanging from her neck. And this man claiming to be her father…well, she didn't need to know anything about him other than he'd killed Gran and Xander and her mother.

“Your mother was vivacious and alluring. The type of woman every man noticed and few had the courage to approach. I was so brave back then.” He was having a moment. She heard it in the nostalgic way he spoke, as if he were in another decade, inhabiting another space. “As simple as it sounds, it really was love at first sight for both of us.”

She didn't care—didn't want to care—about anything he said. “Well, Daddy-o, let's get this funeral started. I'm going to die like my mom. Let's go.”

“I loved everything about her, and she loved me. She was the only person to ever love me unconditionally, at least until the end. Then she hated me. And I hated myself even more. I've never gotten over what happened to her. I try to not think about it, to pretend she never existed, but it's like lying to myself. I always know I'm lying.”

“What did you do to her?” The question popped out before she could contain it.

“While she was pregnant with you, she began having these dreams. Odd dreams about benign things, like getting invited to dinner by my father or that the car wouldn't start one morning. And then those things would happen. I chalked it up to bizarre coincidence. But then her dreams turned dark. She kept dreaming this one dream over and over—my dad, my brothers, and me killing her. It tested her mind. She withdrew from my family, became paranoid they were going to hurt her. And then she withdrew from me. Not in any outward way, but it was like I was no longer with all of her. She was keeping part of herself secreted away. She swore it wasn't true, but I could feel it. I could feel the loss. Finally, I mentioned her dreams to my father. I figured he'd know what to do. I figured he'd offer me guidance on how to help her. I hadn't figured his answer would be to kill her.”

Isleen didn't want to listen, but she heard every nuanced word. If she didn't know him to be a killer, she would've sworn he sounded contrite and heartbroken.

“My father—your grandfather—is a very special man. He's the Lord's Chosen One, and my brothers and I are the Faithful. We were raised on the verse: ‘There shall be none among you who practice occultism, no seers or spell casters, nor any who use prediction, prognostication, or prophecy. Whoever commits these acts is an abomination to the Lord. And the Faithful shall drive out the demons to become righteous in the eyes of the Lord.'”

He had said that to her in the woods, just before Xander—

“Chosen One said Shayla, my wife, my life, my only love, would have to endure the demon box as soon as you were birthed. Six days, six nights in the box. No food. No water. No shelter from the heat. If she died before the lid was lifted on the seventh morning, she had been innocent. If she still lived, it would be proof of the demon inside her. And then she would be baptized in blood and holy water.”

Isleen grabbed on to each of his words. When he didn't say anything more, she prompted, “What happened?” The silence seemed endless and empty. She strained to hear anything from outside her own demon box. “Are you still there?”

“On the seventh morning, the lid was removed and she was still alive. Her eyes found mine. They were filled with so much emotion—love and hate and longing for me to save her—but I couldn't. She had been spawned from the devil. I didn't think I'd be able to complete the ritual. I was completely wrecked, but she eased that burden for me. She died the moment we removed her from the box.”

The words punched the breath she been holding out of her. What had she expected? “You just let her die? How could you ever say you loved her?”

“It was my duty as the Faithful… We are here but to serve the Lord, not to question.” His voice changed like he was mimicking something he'd been told.

“Who told you that? Chosen One? Sounds like he doesn't want anyone questioning him.”

“Do not speak ill of what you do not understand.”

“I understand better than all of you. I understand that your Chosen One gets off on controlling you. I understand Queen got off—as in
got off
—on hurting Gran and me. And I understand that you are too weak or too brainwashed to see that you have been killing good people who only want to do good things in this world. And that's a sin that the
real
God will never forgive.” She sucked in a breath.

“Your grandmother understood. She took you and raised you. Carried the burden of her own evil, realized no human—not even herself—should have the power to change the Lord's destiny. She was baptized in the ways of the Lord and agreed the stain of evil should be removed from you both.”

The words entered Isleen's ears, then exploded in her mind. Doubt crept among all the things she thought were facts. She remembered what Gran said to him right before he killed her.
Your trials didn't work. The evil never left us, no matter how much we endured.
“Gran knew? She condoned you killing her daughter? You taking us? Queen torturing us? Me? No, I don't believe you.”

“She didn't want your fate to be the same as her daughter's. She wanted you saved. As did I.”

“Saved? You call what we went through being saved?” Isleen's mind flashed through a thousand horrible memories and landed on the last words Gran spoke to her.
I can't live with what I've done. I hurt him. I destroyed us by trying to save us. And I did this to you. It's all my fault. I'd take it all back. But, there's no take-backs in life.

Then she remembered their last day in the torture trailer.

Hold on, baby girl. Just hold on. He's coming. He's got to be coming. He will release you. Save you. Your dreams will come true. All of them. Remember the dreams about him. How you loved him and he loved you. Remember the dreams of sunshine on your face and the cabin you shared. Remember…

Why would Gran encourage Isleen's dreams if the dreams were bad? Was that a product of her mind slipping? Or was this guy—her father—lying? So many questions lined up, but there would never be answers she could trust. Gran was dead. And Isleen was next in line, so there was no point in thinking about any of it.

“If I make it to the seventh day, will I die after I'm baptized?”

There was a long pause. When he spoke, his voice was quiet as a whisper. “Yes.”

“Good.” The word came out loud, firm, and clear.

“Don't say that.” He spoke in the whiny tone of a miserable kid.

“Sounds to me like all roads lead to me dying. The only question is if it's going to happen sooner or later.” She was just being practical.

“I don't want you to die. Sooner or later.”

“And yet you won't do a thing to get me out of this box, will you?”

“I can't. Chosen One… The Lord…”

“Guess we're in agreement on one thing. You won't be saving me, and I don't want to be saved. I just want it over.” Even she was surprised at her flippant tone. But not surprised by her words. She meant every one of them.

* * *

The heat woke her. She was hot. Too hot. In-an-oven hot. Sweat ran from her pores and evaporated almost instantaneously. The air was so thick with her body's moisture she could practically taste herself every time she breathed.

Outside her coffin, the man—her father—sang some off-key hymn she didn't care to listen to. She had stopped talking to him, but then he'd started talking nonstop about his Lord, or he sang hymns or prayed or quoted scripture. He obviously wasn't going to let her die in peace.

Her stomach spasmed. She recognized the feeling. Hunger. She wrapped her good arm around her middle to ease the pangs a bit. All her muscles were cramped, and her joints felt loose-hinged and hard to move. She knew that feeling too. Dehydration.

She welcomed starvation and dehydration. That dynamic duo were her new best friends. They were going to be her salvation.

* * *

The line between consciousness and sleep blurred. Isleen lived in that indeterminable in-between space where time lost all meaning. Minutes became hours, hours became days, and days were an endless expanse of forever and always. She forgot a world existed beyond her coffin and the voice constantly talking outside it. She forgot about Gran and Xander. She forgot everything except for pain and suffering and the relentless wish for it to be over.

The overwhelming darkness that had been her constant companion relented, and shapes and shadows formed. Fresh, cool air swept across her skin. She inhaled deeply, taking in the wonderful aroma of growing things and the crisp scent of water. Her sluggish mind took longer than it should have to interpret the message her eyes sent to her brain. The lid of her coffin had been opened. The end—her end—was near.